Michela LE PIRA

Michela Le Pira is currently assistant professor of Transport, Rector's Delegate for Mobility and Mobility Manager at the University of Catania (UNICT), where she earned a Bachelor's Degree in Civil Engineering in July 2010, with honors, and a Master's Degree in Civil Engineering, Water and Transport in October 2012, with honors.

She holds a PhD in Hydraulic, Sanitary, Environmental, and Transport Infrastructure Engineering (XXVIII cycle) since January 2016, with a thesis on public participation in transport planning supported by agent-based models and multicriteria analysis methods.

Post-doc Researcher at Roma Tre University (2016-2017) and subsequently at UNICT (2017-2019). During her RTD-A and RTD-B years at UNICT (2019-present), her research focused on the study of innovative transport systems from the perspective of shared mobility and Mobility as a Service (MaaS), and on innovative transport policies to improve passenger and freight transport.

Scientific Responsible for UNICT of the PRIN 2022 PNRR project "BEC2SCHOOL" (led by the Polytechnic University of Bari, PI Nadia Giuffrida, 2023-2026) on the topic of citizen science and how to promote bottom-up approaches in sustainable mobility planning for the school community, supported by user-generated data. She has participated in several national and international research projects, including the European project "IN-MOB" on innovative and sustainable micromobility, led by UNICT (PI Matteo Ignaccolo, 2023-2026).

Since her first publication indexed in Scopus/WoS in 2014, she has regularly published more than 90 peer-reviewed publications, including articles, book chapters, and peer-reviewed conference proceedings (from Scopus: h-index 29; 97 documents; 2,431 citations - 31/01/2026). She is co-editor of the "Handbook on City Logistics and Urban Freight" published by Edward Elgar Publishing (https://www.elgaronline.com/edcollbook/book/9781800370173/9781800370173.xml). Sge has presented at numerous prestigious conferences on transport research topics, including the 13th, 14th, and 15th World Conference on Transport Research (WCTR). Chair and coordinator of the Scientific Committee of the international conference TIS Roma 2024 (Rome, September 19-20, 2024) (https://tisroma.aiit.it/conference-committee/). Member and currently Director of the Study and Research Center of the Italian Association for Traffic and Transport Engineering (AIIT).